Lynne Knight

AGAINST ORDER

Tear the line into pieces.
                                                                                    Open it out:
                    Let silence be
                                                  part of all that must be
                                                                                                    said.
I can’t.                                                                       I can’t.
It looks so disorganized. I want
to move it like furniture
back into place.
It’s a curse, your obsession for order,
my lover says, wanting me
                                                                                wild—

So, to justify myself, I point out
that light in the night sky
may be traveling, but the stars stay
where they are.

Or do they?
What if some night Cassiopeia
fell apart,
splashed down like water?

What use the well-appointed bed,
the vacuumed rug,
the alphabetically arranged books
if a star came splashing down
like water, fiery water,
burning everything in its path?

All my molecules about to scatter—

just the thought of it makes me clutch
the sheets, press myself into the mattress—

but ah, the wonder of it, to be
          moving inside my lover’s
arms then, any second bound
                                                                                to explode—

–from Rattle #26, Winter 2006